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The House of Slamming Doors

The House of Slamming Doors

by Mark Macauley (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2010

    $3.25
Synopsis

My name is Justin Alexander Torquhil Edward Peregrine Montague, but my father calls me 'you little bollocks', or when he is in a good mood, 'old cock'. Like I'm married to a hen. My best friend is Annie, Annie Cassidy. Annie is thirteen, just like me. It's 1963 in a country house in west Wicklow during the heady summer of JFK's visit to Ireland. Turbulence is in the air as Justin is locked in combat with his angry and inebriate father. A dark and poignant comedy unfolds and progresses to winter as Kennedy is assassinated and Justine ends his oedipal struggle and comes of age. Replete with the perennial tensions between native and settler, servant and master, Camelot and Leinster House, this poignant tale concerns identity and first love, and the pain of a knowing child living amongst aliens. Told with the panache of PG Wodehouse crossed with Caroline Blackwood, it conveys the spirit of a bygone age and the very present emotions of a fast-growing boy. It is a masterful debut novel.

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Quantity

2 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 208
 Publisher: The Lilliput Press Ltd
Published: 14 May 2010
ISBN 10: 1843511673
ISBN 13: 9781843511670

Media Reviews
'Packed with hilarious incident and pathos...an audacious one-off.' (Catherine Taylor, The Guardian) 'Tensions mount relentlessly...This Ireland is lyrical and vibrant and honest.' (Carol Birch, Times Literary Supplement) 'It's a cracker!' (David Elliot, Quartet Books) 'Whoopee! Amazingly, Mark Macauley's first novel. Here's hoping (it) flags the start of a whole new, stellar career.' (Rosita Sweetman, Sunday Independent, Ire) 'It is a brilliant book - fantastically funny, terribly moving, sad and just plain magic.' (Lady Emma Fellowes) 'Weird, wonderful and highly recommended...the funniest memoir I have read in years.' (Tom Widger, Sunday Tribune, Ire) 'The gentle build of pressure, the feel of a bleak sixties childhood, the ghastly parents...I loved all of it.' (John Blake, John Blake Publishing) 'A brilliant debut!' (The Sun) 'An effortless read, packed with funny incidents and peopled with deliciously eccentric characters.' (Reading Matters) 'I absolutely loved the whole thing from the first page to the last page!' (Errol Trzebinski, author) 'A subtler kind of eccentricity pervades The House of Slamming Doors. An enjoyable tale.' (Financial Times) 'Macauley mines a seam of the kind of easily appealing, dark but humorous writing typified by Roddy Doyle.' (Times Literary Supplement) 'I honestly cannot remember being more enchanted, entertained and amused by any novel for decades. It is a real tour de force.' (Gerard Noel, publisher)
Author Bio
Mark Macauley was born in 1956 and raised on the edge of the Wicklow Mountains. He lives between London and Africa and makes documentaries and writes screenplays. This is his first novel.